Arts
Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney Festival
To state the obvious, these are extremely testing times for the performing arts and live entertainment generally. Although galleries are…
From joy to dissolution
At the start of Elgar’s Second Symphony the full orchestra hovers, poised. It pulls back; and then, like a dam…
The real deal – or not
One of the stranger things that happened in the period just before lockdown was the sudden disappearance of audiences from…
Cobweb-thin
Hats off to the Lawrence Batley Theatre for producing a brand-new full-length show on-line. Stephen Fry, with avuncular fruitiness, narrates…
Sex, drugs and disappointment
If I could live my life over again my plan used to be that I’d make my fortune very early,…
Catastrophe
At the outset of lockdown I gave you my list of top mustn’t-watch films — that is, the ones that…
Doo-wop deity
He toured with Little Richard, sang with Van Morrison, inspired the Beatles and Paul Simon. Graeme Thomson talks to Dion, one of the last living links to the early days of street-corner rock ’n’ roll
Uplift
If eight weeks in lockdown have brought out my baser impulses (biscuits by the sleeve, total renunciation of waistbands), it’s…
Cover of May issue of Apollo
We are all being digitised one way or another. Performing arts companies, not able to perform, are gamely putting themselves…
There’s something about dairy
You may be asking yourself: have I reached that point in lockdown where I’m watching Icelandic dramas about the price…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Swanky, stale and sullen
The summer music festival has had its day, says Norman Lebrecht
The escape artist
Arena: The Changin’ Times of Ike White (Monday) had an extraordinary story to tell — but one that, halfway through…
Surfer’s paradise
The full addictive potential of classical YouTube needs to be experienced to be understood. And let’s be honest, there are…
Game on
Lynn Barber picks up a Nintendo Switch for the first time
The wonder of Wodehouse
Everyone knows a Lord Emsworth. Mine lives south of the river and wears caterpillars in his hair and wine on…
Dame Mary Gilmore working from home in 1952
She lived in a flat in Kings Cross, was a lifelong socialist, a regularly observant Presbyterian, a Dame of the…
Lessons in terror
Sweden is now properly celebrated as the Land that Called Coronavirus Correctly. But in the distant past, those with long…
Hogsflesh and herring
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion, real name Bruce Frederick Cummings, earned his living measuring the legs of lice in the Natural…
Beasties and besties
The music of the Beastie Boys was entirely an expression of their personalities, a chance to delightedly splurge out on…
The best recordings of Bruckner’s Eighth
I am daunted. Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony is a work that I regard with love, awe and even anxiety. I always…
Pinch and a punch
The National’s bizarre livestreaming service continues. On 7 May, for one week only, it released a modern-dress version of Antony…
Human soup
The earliest depictions of the Americas were eye-popping, and shaped European art, says Laura Gascoigne
The Heckler: Why does anyone still rate Vertigo?
Here’s something that may interest you. Or not. (Could go either way.) I was looking over Sight & Sound’s ‘100…
Queens of print
The Spectator has been celebrating its 10,000th UK issue with justifiable pride; it is an astounding achievement. Australia has long…
